• From Milli Vanilli to the Cardiff Giant to Balloon Boy: The greatest hoaxes in American history

    By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News

    The twisted tale of football star Manti Te'o's girlfriend -- who reportedly died this past year under tragic circumstances but then was found never to exist – has shocked and mystified people across America.

    But this isn’t the first time we’ve had the collective wool pulled over our eyes. Here are some of the most successful hoaxes and tall tales in American history:

    Balloon Boy: In April 2010, the nation was riveted as cable news networks cut into live programming to broadcast the runaway flight of a Fort Collins, Colo., family's experimental balloon, which supposedly contained their six-year-old son, Falcon Heene. The silver, helium-filled aircraft had become untethered from the family's yard and for two hours, authorities chased it as it wobbled above Colorado. When it landed in a field, empty, the Heene family -- who had twice appeared on the ABC reality show "Wife Swap" prior to the balloon incident -- insisted their older son had said Falcon climbed into the balloon before it took off. As it turned out, Falcon had been hiding in a cardboard box in the attic the entire time. In January 2011, the Heene children started a heavy metal band they call HEENE BOYZ, which includes Falcon as lead vocalist and bass player, Bradford, the oldest, on lead guitar, and Ryo, the middle son, on the drums.

    Charles Tasnadi / AP file

    Janet Cooke and 'Jimmy's World': In September 1980, Janet Cooke wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning story for the front page of The Washington Post about an eight-year-old boy with a heroin addiction, whose life was the product of rape. Just 26 herself, Cooke faded out of public view after Washington, D.C., police, desperate to help Jimmy out of his life of addiction, couldn't find him, and it was discovered that she had made up the entire tale. The Post returned her Pulitzer in 1981. Her boyfriend revealed years later that she was working for minimum wage at a department store.

    Reuters

    Milli Vanilli's Grammy: Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan of the German pop band Milli Vanilli took the stage in Los Angeles in 1990 to accept a Grammy award for best new artist, performing their big hit, "Girl You Know It's True," which hit number one on the U.S. charts. Sadly, the glitz and glamour of the Grammy night wore off quickly when it was discovered the two had not only lip-synched their Grammy performance, but the song's lead vocals belonged to other singers. To date, Milli Vanilli is the only group to ever have a Grammy revoked. Pilatus died of a suspected accidental drug overdose in 1998; Morvan told USA TODAY in 2010 he wants his Grammy back, but "there's no bitterness. It made me a better man."

    James Frey: In January 2006, author James Frey got a literary slap in the face from one of the most influential book critics of all: Oprah Winfrey. "I feel duped," she told him on her talk show after accusing him of lying in his so-called memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," which chronicled his struggles with recovering from addiction. "But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers." Frey's fall from book club pick to accusations of fabrication began after a thorough investigation from The Smoking Gun website found the author had "wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw 'wanted in three states.'" Despite the revelations, the book continued to fly off the shelves, but Doubleday, the publisher, added a note to future editions of "A Million Little Pieces" explaining some events in the text had been embellished. Since then, Oprah has publicly apologized to Frey for her harsh words, and he has gone on to publish a couple of other books -- but didn't classify those as memoirs.

    Hulton Archive / Getty Images file

    'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast: On Halloween eve in 1938, Americans who tuned into Orson Welles on CBS Radio received some astonishing news: A meteorite had crashed into New Jersey, and New York had been invaded by Martians. What the broadcast failed to convey to the stunned listeners who may have missed the introduction to the show was that they were listening to an adaptation of the science fiction novel "The War of the Worlds," written 40 years earlier by H.G. Wells. "Good heavens -- something's wiggling out of the shadow," one of the newscasters on the show, describing the meteorite in New Jersey read to terrified listeners, some of whom took to their basements to hide. "It glistens like wet leather. But that face -- it ... it is indescribable." Welles later expressed regret for causing such a panic. 

    CBS News via AP file

    Stephen Glass: In the spring of 1998, journalist Stephen Glass was regularly publishing stories for Harper's Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Slate, and was an associate editor at The New Republic. But one story -- "Hack Heaven," about a 15-year-old hacker -- struck some as being too good to be true. As it turned out, all of it was: Neither the young hacker nor the software company he was allegedly blackmailing existed. As editors delved into more of Glass's stories, fabrications were found in a large portion of them. Since then, Glass has written a novel, "The Fabulist," and last summer, sought a California law license.

    AFP - Getty Images file

    The Great Moon Hoax: In August 1835, The New York Sun published a series of stories on its front page about wild advances in astronomy, including a new telescope made by Sir John Herschel that "discovered new planets beyond our solar system," "solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy," and discovered life on the moon. There were blue unicorns and winged humans on the moon, according to what was seen in this telescope, the story alleged. Astronomer Sir John Herschel was not consulted before the story was written quoting him. After numerous other newspapers responded to the stories expressing skepticism, one exposed it as a hoax by the end of the month.

    Jayson Blair: Plagiarize at one of the most venerable newspapers in the world, and you'll make the front page – as the subject of an article. This is a lesson Jayson Blair learned in the spring of 2003, when he, as a young reporter at The New York Times, stole writing from other reporters, made up quotes, invented details out of thin air, and created an "embarrassment of plagiarism and fiction," according to The New York Times' own investigation. As the war in Iraq ramped up, so did his lies, with claims of reporting from the Texas home of a missing soldier or another soldier's funeral in Ohio, when in reality, he never traveled to either. A reporter he had interned with in the past accused him of plagiarizing parts of her story, published in the San Antonio Express News, word for word, in April of 2003; the following month, The Times ran a 14,000 word article detailing Blair's deceptions, which concluded he had faked all or part of 36 stories in the six months of his employment with them. He later wrote a book, "Burning Down My Master's House: My Life at the New York Times."

    Mark Elias / AP file

    Tawana Brawley: In 1987, at 15, Brawley was reportedly discovered in a garbage bag in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., her body smeared with feces and "KKK" and the n-word scrawled on her torso. In the hospital, she said that she had been kidnapped by white men and raped over a four-day period. Her terrible story propelled her into the national spotlight, with Rev. Al Sharpton and others supporting her as several men were implicated in the act. However, in late 1988, a grand jury investigation found "no medical or forensic evidence that a sexual assault was committed on Tawana Brawley," placing the entire account in question. One of the people Brawley had accused as an assailant was a New York prosecutor, who later successfully sued Brawley for defamation.

    Lance Armstrong: He beat cancer, but he didn't beat allegations of doping. The Tour de France champion and Livestrong charity founder for years fought accusations that he took steroids to enhance his cycling performance. Along the way he built up a fortune estimated at more than $100 million. But on Thursday, Jan. 13, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey recorded earlier this week, he will finally admit that he did indeed dope, NBC News confirmed. It could spell the beginning of years of lawsuits that could cost him tens of millions of dollars.

    Toshifumi Kitamura / AFP - Getty Images file

    Roswell aliens: In July 1947, an aircraft fell from the sky, crashing on a ranch in Roswell, N.M. Whether it was a flying saucer from another world, a weather balloon, or something else entirely has left skeptics and believers debating for years -- but many out-of-this-world believers insist the government, which has a heavy military presence in Roswell, covered up the discovery of alien bodies in the aircraft. One intelligence officer and eyewitness to the crash, Maj. Jesse Marcel, fueled the speculation by saying years later that what was found on the ranch was "not of this Earth"; the Air Force issued two reports in the 1970s concluding the material was from Project Mogul, a secret program of atmospheric balloons used to detect nuclear tests from the Soviets.

    Farmers Museum via AP file

    The Cardiff Giant: In October 1869, a 10-foot-tall, petrified man was supposedly found by workers on a man's farm in Cardiff, N.Y. Some people thought he was a statue; others thought he was from biblical times. Crowds from all over flocked to see the stone giant, who, in actuality, was created by a man named George Hull. Hull decided to bury the giant in the ground after he got into an argument with a Methodist reverend about whether to take the Bible literally. Hull made the giant to show how blindly religious people will believe what they hear regarding their faith. Ultimately, the Cardiff Giant was an investment for Hull: He paid about $2,600 to make it, but a group of businessmen later paid him $37,500 to permanently display it in Cooperstown, N.Y..

    What are your favorite tall tales and hoaxes? Tell us in the comments below. 

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  • Judge throws out lawsuit against 'Three Cups of Tea' author

    Handout via Reuters

    Greg Mortenson, author of "Three Cups of Tea," posed with schoolchildren in Afghanistan. He has come under fire for exaggerating and conflating certain details in his book, and four readers filed suit against him.

    By Matt Volz, The Associated Press

    A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit against author Greg Mortenson, calling claims "flimsy and speculative" that the humanitarian and his publisher lied in his best-selling "Three Cups of Tea" and "Stones Into Schools" to boost book sales.


    The civil lawsuit by four people who bought Mortenson's books said they were cheated out of about $15 each because the books were labeled as nonfiction accounts of how Mortenson came to build schools in Central Asia.

    The lawsuit by four readers from Montana, California and Illinois was filed after "60 Minutes" and author Jon Krakauer reported last year that Mortenson fabricated parts of those books.

    The plaintiffs said Mortenson, co-author David Oliver Relin, Penguin and Central Asia Institute were involved in a fraud and racketeering conspiracy to build Mortenson into a false hero to sell books and raise money for CAI, the charity Mortenson co-founded.

    Haddon wrote in his ruling that their racketeering allegations "are fraught with shortcomings" and the plaintiffs' "overly broad" claims that they bought the books because they were supposed to be true aren't supported in the lawsuit.

    The ruling is good news for Mortenson and his charity after the Montana attorney general earlier in April announced a $1 million agreement to settle claims that Mortenson mismanaged the institute and misspent its funds. The agreement removes Mortenson from any financial oversight and overhauls the charity's structure, but did not address the books' contents.

    "He stands by his books," said Anne Beyersdorfer, the charity's interim executive director, of Haddon's ruling.

    Mortenson was on his way to Pakistan on Monday and could not immediately comment, she said.

    "Three Cups of Tea," which has sold about 4 million copies since being published in 2006, was conceived as a way to raise money and tell the story of his institute, founded by Mortenson in 1996.

    The book and promotion of the charity by Mortenson, who appeared at more than 500 speaking engagements in four years, resulted in tens of millions of dollars in donations.

    The book recounts how Mortenson lost his way after a failed mountaineering expedition and was nursed back to health in a Pakistani village. Based on the villagers' kindness and the poverty he saw, he resolved to build a school for them.

    The lawsuit claimed, as did the Krakauer and "60 Minutes" report, that Mortenson fabricated that story and others in the book and its sequel, "Stones Into Schools."

    In this April 2011 video, Daniel Borochoff, the president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, talks about the controversy surrounding the book, "Three Cups of Tea," by Greg Mortenson.

    Morentson has denied any wrongdoing, though he has acknowledged some of the events in "Three Cups of Tea" were compressed over different periods of time.

    The judge did not address allegations of fabrications, but wrote that the plaintiffs can't simply rely on general allegations of lies in making a claim.

    In fact, many of the items that the lawsuit lists as lies the defendants made after the books were written, such as CAI paying for Mortenson's expenses and purchasing his books, "do not actually appear to be untruthful or illegal, and are overly vague," Haddon wrote.

    Haddon also ruled that the plaintiffs can't rewrite their complaint to address those shortcomings, noting that the case has been pending for nearly a year and the lawsuit already has been changed five times.

    "The imprecise, in part flimsy, and speculative nature of the claims and theories advanced underscore the necessary conclusion that further amendment would be futile," Haddon wrote.

    Plaintiffs' attorney Zander Blewett did not immediately return a call for comment.

    The plaintiffs had asked Haddon to order Penguin to account for all the money collected from book sales and refund that money to people who bought the books, with the rest going to a humanitarian organization.

    The yearlong Montana attorney general investigation found that Mortenson's poor record keeping and personnel management resulted in unknown amounts of cash spent overseas or for management costs without receipts or documentation. CAI's two other board members were Mortenson loyalists who generally did not challenge Mortenson, and he resisted or ignored CAI employees who questioned his practices, the investigative report said.

    Mortenson also reaped financial benefits at the charity's expense, including the free promotion of his books, and the royalties from thousands of copies the organization bought to donate to libraries, schools, churches and military personnel, the report said.

    The organization spent more than $2 million on Mortenson's charter flights to speaking engagements, and Mortenson and his family also charged personal items to the charity, according to the report.

    Beyersdorfer has said Mortenson will remain the face of the charity, but it won't be as executive director and he is barred from being a voting member of the board of directors as long as he still draws a paycheck from CAI.

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  • Author Greg Mortenson faces civil suit over 'Three Cups of Tea'

    Greg Mortenson poses with Sitara "Star" schoolchildren in Wakhan, northeastern Afghanistan in this undated handout file photograph released to Reuters March 11, 2009.

    By The Associated Press

    A federal court is expected to hear accusations Wednesday that author and humanitarian Greg Mortenson fabricated parts of his best-selling books "Three Cups of Tea" and "Stones Into Schools." 

    A hearing is scheduled in Great Falls, Montana on claims that Mortenson lied about how he came to build schools in Central Asia after losing his way in a failed mountaineering expedition and being nursed back to health in a Pakistani village. 

     The lawsuit — filed by two California residents, a Montana man and an Illinois woman who bought the books — list more than two dozen alleged fabrications and accusations of wrongdoing by Mortenson, publisher Penguin Group, co-author David Oliver Relin and the Central Asia Institute. 

    The plaintiffs say Mortenson and the others purposely presented the lies as the truth to trick readers into buying the books and donating to the charity. They accuse Mortenson and the others of racketeering, fraud, deceit, breach of contract and unjust enrichment. 

    A First Amendment expert calls the lawsuit absurd, regardless of whether the books contain fabrications. 

    'Three Cups of Tea' author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity

    Mortenson did not defame or harm anybody in his books, and barring narrow exceptions like national secrets, he can write what he wants and does not have to justify it, said Wayne Giampietro, a Chicago attorney and general counsel of the First Amendment Lawyers Association. 

    "It's his story. It purports to be his experiences. He can say it any way he wants to say. He has the right to publish anything he wants about himself," Giampietro said. "The idea that you can be sued because perhaps they don't like what you wrote, for whatever reason, is absurd." 

    Lawyers for Mortenson and Penguin Group plan to argue that very point before U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon. They are asking Haddon to dismiss the lawsuit, which seeks triple the amount of total books sales, plus punitive damages. The lawsuit is asking a judge to order that everybody who bought the books be refunded. Whatever money is left over would go to a humanitarian organization selected by the plaintiffs' attorneys and approved by the court 

    That promises to be several million dollars. "Three Cups of Tea" alone sold about 4 million copies. 

    The hearing comes less than two weeks after Mortenson and the Montana attorney general announced a $1 million agreement to settle claims that Mortenson mismanaged the Central Asia Institute and misspent its funds. The agreement removes Mortenson from any financial oversight and overhauls the charity's structure, but it did not address the contents of the books. 

    That's where the civil lawsuit comes in. The four plaintiffs allege that Mortenson, Relin, Penguin, the Central Asia Institute and Mortenson's consulting group, MC Consulting, were involved in a conspiracy to promote and sell the books based on lies. 
    "The enterprise's fraudulent scheme was to make Mortenson into a false hero, to sell books representing to contain true events, when they were false, to defraud millions of unsuspecting purchasers out of the purchase price of the books and to raise millions of dollars in charitable donations for CAI," their lawsuit alleges. 

    The claims cite a laundry list of alleged fabrications. They include Mortenson's recollections about holding Mother Teresa's hand while her body was lying in state in 2000, when Mother Teresa actually died three years earlier. 

    Those and several other alleged fabrications in the lawsuit were first brought to light last year by author Jon Krakauer and a "60 Minutes" story that questioned the truth behind Mortenson's writings and whether he was benefiting from his charity. Those reports prompted the Montana attorney general's investigation and also the civil lawsuit whose original plaintiffs dropped out months ago. 

    One of the lawyers in the case is Larry Drury, who also represented plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against James Frey, who admitted on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" that he lied in his memoir "A Million Little Pieces." 

    That lawsuit ended in a settlement that offered refunds to buyers of the book. 

    Drury and fellow plaintiffs' attorney Alexander Blewett say the Mortenson and Frey cases "are stunningly close." 

    Mortenson and Penguin don't argue that the events in the books are true, though the publisher says that nobody can rely on the truth or accuracy of autobiographies because they are based on the authors' own recollections. 

    Both Mortenson and Penguin argue that the plaintiffs can't prove that they were actually injured by anything that was written in the books and that this lawsuit amounts to a threat to free speech. 

    Penguin attorney F. Matthew Ralph says that if a publisher were required to guarantee the truth and accuracy of everything an author says, the costs of publishing books would be prohibitive. 

    "No standards exist for drawing the line where 'fiction' becomes 'nonfiction' or vice versa; and the courts are not a proper place for developing such standards or policing that line," Ralph wrote.

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    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • 'Three Cups of Tea' fallout: Are you more wary of the charities you donate to?

    By msnbc.com staff

    Related story: 'Three Cups of Tea' author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million

  • 'Three Cups of Tea' author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity

    AP

    By James Eng, NBC News

    Award-winning “Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson has agreed to pay $1 million to a nonprofit he co-founded to settle allegations that he misspent charity money on personal items such as plane flights for family vacations and iTunes downloads, the Montana attorney general said Thursday.


    In a 44-page report, Attorney General Steve Bullock said a yearlong investigation by his office concluded that Mortenson mismanaged his nonprofit, the Bozeman-Mont.-based Central Asia Institute, and personally profited from it.

    “Mortenson’s pursuits are noble and his achievements are important. However, serious internal problems in the management of CAI surfaced,” Bullock said in the report.

    Mortenson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment through the Central Asia Institute. Interim director Anne Beyersdorfer told The Associated Press that the author will continue to be a paid employee, promoting CAI and building relationships overseas, but will no longer be on the board of directors.

    “While we respectfully disagree with some of the analysis and conclusions in the OAG’s report, we look forward to moving ahead as an even stronger organization, focusing on CAI’s vital mission,” Beyersdorfer said in a separate statement on the CAI website.

    “CAI has always been a small group of dynamic, mission-centric individuals doing extraordinary work. Mistakes were made during a rapid period of growth, and we have corrected or are in the process of correcting them.”

    Mortenson became a huge name in philanthropy – and quite wealthy – after his 2006 book, “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time,” became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. He followed up with another bestseller, “Stones into Schools,” in 2009.

    Poll: Are you more wary of the charities you donate to?

    In “Three Cups,” Mortenson tells of how his failed 1993 attempt to climb K2, the world’s second-tallest mountain, resulted in a series of happenstance encounters that led him to establish schools for impoverished children in the remote villages of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    But his reputation as an international philanthropist and globetrotting do-gooder became tarnished after an April 2011 “60 Minutes” report in which author and fellow climber Jon Krakauer cited witness accounts that contradicted essential parts of Mortenson’s version of his experiences in South-Central Asia. The report also raised questions about the way his charity’s funds were being managed and spent.

    Read the full AG's report

    The report led to an investigation by the Montana attorney general’s office, which reviewed thousands of pages of documents and took sworn statements from Mortenson and others.

    Bullock noted the investigation did not focus on whether Mortenson lied in his books, and it didn’t turn up evidence of conduct that could lead to criminal prosecution. Instead, it looked into CAI’s arrangements with Mortenson concerning his books and speaking engagements, as well as the financial affairs of the charity.

    The probe found that the Central Asia Institute had spent about $3.96 million since 2006 to buy copies of "Three Cups of Tea," which were then distributed to libraries, schools, the military and others. Mortenson was supposed to provide a contribution to CAI equal to the amount of royalty payments he received from the book purchases, but failed to do so, investigators concluded.

    The report also noted that Mortenson made hundreds of public appearances and speaking engagements to promote the book and CAI, often receiving sizable speaking fees. At the same time that the CAI was paying for his travel costs, many event sponsors were paying for similar costs. “Thus, Mortenson was ‘double dipping,’" the report said.

    In one of the most damning passages, the report said:

    “Mortenson, in particular, consistently failed to comply with either commonly accepted business practices or CAI’s policy manual with respect to documenting expenses charged on CAI’s accounts. The issue was repeatedly raised through the years. Board members testified that despite requests, cajoling, demands and admonitions, they were unsuccessful in getting Mortenson to submit proper documentation to support the charges he was making to the charity.

    The board went so far as to provide Mortenson with a personal assistant while traveling. This, however, also failed, as the personal assistant, himself, did not adequately comply with expense reimbursement requirements, nor did he cure the problems relating to Mortenson’s expenses.

    The more significant issue was not simply compliance with expense reimbursement and documentation policies, but the nature and magnitude of charges for which inadequate documentation exists. Through the years, Mortenson charged substantial personal expenses to CAI. These include expenses for such things as LL Bean clothing, iTunes, luggage, luxurious accommodations, and even vacations."

    Under the settlement agreement, Mortenson must reimburse the charity more than $1 million. Nearly half has already been repaid.

    Mortenson underwent surgery in June 2011 to repair a hole in his heart, and he later stepped down as executive director of the organization.

    Beyersdorfer said the fallout from the investigation won't detract from the Central Asia Institute's mission of helping children in fofgotten places.

    "News fatigue about Pakistan and Afghanistan is evident everywhere we look these days. But the children and their parents, village elders, and teachers with whom we work cannot look away; this is about their futures," she said in a statement. "Greg and our overseas managers have dedicated their lives to helping fulfill countless dreams and aspirations and we are honored to continue our life-changing work together."

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